Eur. Phys. J. B (2013) 86: 512
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2013-40849-8

Regular Article

Gauge invariance and spinon-dopon confinement in the t-J model: implications for Fermi surface reconstruction in the cuprates

¹ International Institute of Physics – UFRN, Department of Experimental and Theoretical Physics – 59078-400 Natal, Brazil
² Laboratory of Theoretical Physics, Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, 141980 Dubna, Russia

^a e-mail: aferraz.iccmp@gmail.com

Received: 20 September 2013
Received in final form: 14 November 2013
Published online: 18 December 2013

Abstract

We discuss the application of the two-band spin-dopon representation of the t-J model to address the issue of the Fermi surface reconstruction observed in the cuprates. We show that the electron no double occupancy (NDO) constraint plays a key role in this formulation. In particular, the auxiliary lattice spin and itinerant dopon degrees of freedom of the spin-dopon formulation of the t-J model are shown to be confined in the emergent U(1) gauge theory generated by the NDO constraint. This constraint is enforced by the requirement of an infinitely large spin-dopon coupling. As a result, the t-J model is equivalent to a Kondo-Heisenberg lattice model of itinerant dopons and localized lattice spins at infinite Kondo coupling at all dopings. We show that mean-field treatment of the large vs. small Fermi surface crossing in the cuprates which leaves out the NDO constraint, leads to inconsistencies and it is automatically excluded form the t-J model framework.